All-Japan Pro Wrestling

Founded in 1972, All-Japan Pro Wrestling is considered the #2 promotion in Japan trailing only New Japan. The promotion was founded by Japanese legend Shohei “Giant” Baba and the Momota brothers, who also are the sons of the legendary Rikidozan. Baba also established the Pacific Wrestling Federation (PWF) as the governing body for all future titles in All-Japan. They also were a member of the NWA until the late 1980s when the NWA collapsed, and soon after the promotion combined it’s 3 titles-the NWA United National Championship, the PWF Heavyweight Championship and the NWA International Heavyweight Championship-into it’s Heavyweight Championship now known as the prestigious Triple Crown. In the ’90s AJPW was it’s own entity and carved it’s own identity, and was successful until Baba’s death in January 1999. After he died, wrestler Mitsuharu Misawa-then the top wrestler in the promotion-was chosen to replace Baba and work alongside Baba’s widow Motoko. 16 months and a very nasty feud later, Misawa left the promotion and started a mass exodus from the promotion, taking almost all the wrestlers on the roster with him to form what is now known as Pro Wrestling NOAH. All-Japan then briefly worked with New Japan until Keiji Muto defected from New Japan to All-Japan, bringing top names Kendo Ka Shin & Satoshi Kojima with him. Muto then was appointed president of All-Japan, a position he still holds today. The PWF remains part of the promotion, it is headed by former wrestler and politician Hiroshi Hase, who gained a lot of attention for wrestling while serving in the Japanese Diet (the Japanese equivalent of the US Congress).
A handful of wrestlers were either kicked out of the promotion or suspended indefinitely in June 2011 following the 5/29/2011 event in which wrestler Super Hate (Nobukazu Hirai) became ill after his match and suffered a stroke. It was revealed that it was possibly caused by an altercation with Voodoo Murders stable leader TARU, which led to TARU as well as VM members KONO, Minoru & MAZADA being indefinitely suspended by the promotion and the faction being disbanded. It also resulted in Keiji Muto stepping down as President and accepting responsibility for what happened. Muto was replaced by Representative President Masayuki Uchida.
All-Japan currently has 4 titles: The Triple Crown, All-Japan Unified World Tag Team Championship, All-Japan World Jr. Heavyweight Championship, All-Asia Tag Team Championship. A 5th title, F-1 Tag Team Championship, is contested for occasionally but not recognized by the promotion as an official All-Japan title. They run 4 annual tournaments: Champions Carnival (singles), Junior Heavyweight League (singles), World’s Strongest Tag League (tag teams, sometimes also called Real World Tag League), Jr. Tag League (tag teams).